The Precipice (13 page)

“That’s quite a high-powered entourage,” I said.

“I’m surprised the governor’s not coming, too.” Stacey made no secret of her dislike for the man and his love of all things asphalt and oil.

Deb Davies pretended not to have heard the remark. “Lieutenant DeFord told me you were the one who found the point last seen, Mike.”

“It looks that way,” I said. “The last record we have of them was at the Chairback Gap lean-to ten days ago.”

“I didn’t realize they’d been missing that long.”

We all fell quiet as she processed the information. Like me, Davies was a veteran of many searches. She knew that the odds of finding missing persons alive after the first two days were slim.

“I can change your tire for you,” I said.

But when I lifted up the trunk liner and removed the wing nut, I discovered that the spare was also flat.

“Oh, cheese and crackers!” The chaplain glanced at her wristwatch, and I caught a glimpse of Mickey Mouse with his pinwheeling arms. “That plane is going to be here any minute, too.”

“Why don’t we give you a lift to the airport,” said Stacey.

I didn’t want to give Lieutenant DeFord the impression that I was ignoring the assignment he’d given me in order to indulge my curiosity. Stacey clearly had no such qualms.

Deb Davies looked back and forth between us. “Would you mind?”

“Not at all,” said Stacey.

The backseat of my pickup was cluttered with all the gear I might use in the course of a week: a sleeping bag, spotting scope, change of uniform, blaze orange safety vest, camouflage raincoat, come-along, hatchet, first-aid kit, wool blanket, my AR-15 rifle and Mossberg 590A1 shotgun, entrenching tool—all sorts of crap. I had to throw half of it into the truck bed to make room for Deb Davies. Her nose twitched as she squeezed inside. She peered around as if she were afraid that I might have a dead beaver hidden under the blanket.

I rolled down my window and started off for the airport.

Deb leaned forward against my seat, close enough for me to smell the spearmint chewing gum in her mouth. “How do you like your new district? It must be a change for you working in the suburbs.”

“He misses the woods,” said Stacey.

I’d never expressed that thought, but it was absolutely true. “I got to spend a lot of time on the water this summer, at least.”

“You looked cute going on patrol on a Jet Ski,” said Stacey.

I met Deb’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “She’s making fun of me for wearing a bathing suit.”

“I’m sure all the drunk female boaters liked seeing your pretty legs,” said Stacey. “And some of the male ones, too.”

She knew I’d been teased about my lake patrol “uniform.” It was true that I’d heard some catcalls. I hadn’t wanted to admit how much I’d enjoyed tooling around on my shiny Kawasaki STX-15F, playing waterborne traffic cop to the flotillas that plied Sebago Lake on hot summer days. It wasn’t why I’d become a game warden, but it had made for a novel experience.

Glancing ahead, I saw a cleared area that I recognized as the end of the runway. I followed the perimeter of the airport property until I reached the entrance. It was more of an airstrip in the forest than a conventional passenger or commercial facility; there was no control tower, just a cluster of hangars on both sides of the landing strip, a firehouse, a fueling station, and a small trailerlike building where the pilots could get coffee. Most of the planes in view had propellers: Cessnas and Cirruses. There was even an antique biplane.

We parked in the dirt lot beside a black warden’s truck, a Greenville police cruiser, and an unmarked Ford Interceptor that I recognized as the standard model given to state police detectives. I kept the engine running as Deb got out. Stacey unsnapped her seat belt and hopped to the ground.

“Thank you for the ride,” said the Reverend Davies, straightening her uniform lapels.

“It was no trouble,” I replied. “Stacey, we should probably get on the road.”

“I’ve never flown into this airport before,” Stacey said. “I want to have a look around for future reference. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

It was more than a pilot’s interest, I suspected.

I parked the truck beside the others and followed the two women to the runway. There was no fence or gate to stop us. We saw a group of people gathered around the door of a gleaming Learjet. I spotted Lieutenant DeFord and Sergeant Fitzpatrick, both in their dress uniforms—green and blue, respectively—as well as the taciturn FBI agent, Genoways, in his navy suit. Standing in front of them was Commissioner Matthews; she was a small, sharp-nosed woman with a boy’s haircut, wearing a dress the color of a fire engine.

“It looks like the families are already here,” I said.

“Crab cakes!” said the Reverend Davies, and hurried off toward the runway.

Stacey started to follow her, but I caught her arm. Her head swung around, lips pursed.

“We need to get going,” I said.

“You can pretend you’re not interested, Bowditch, but I know you are.”

I let go of her arm.

Deb Davies approached the group. We were too far away to hear their conversation, but even from a distance we could tell that she was apologizing for being late. We saw two middle-aged couples step forward to shake her hand.

The fathers could almost have been twins. They both had short brown hair and golf-course tans, and they were both dressed in blue blazers over polo shirts, loose slacks, and loafers. Their bellies curved over their woven leather belts in exactly the same way.

The mothers were opposites. One was as thin as a fence post. She had feathery blond hair that reminded me of pictures I’d seen of women in the 1970s, a long neck and long hands, and a mask of bright makeup. She wore a linen pantsuit and sandals. Based on the hair color, I took her to be Samantha’s mother.

The other woman was a short-haired brunette, but the color looked as if it had come from a bottle. She wore a flowery blouse and a pleated green skirt that accentuated the width of her hips. Everything about her—from her pained, drooping face to her slouched shoulders and hanging breasts—seemed to be pulled by a greater gravity than the rest of us were experiencing. Missy’s mom struck me as one of the saddest people I’d ever seen.

While we watched, a man I hadn’t noticed stepped forward and greeted Deb Davies. He appeared to be in his late thirties and had the build of someone who played a lot of tennis. He was dressed in new-looking jeans, a white dress shirt without a tie, and a gray sharkskin blazer. His hair, styled in a pompadour, was the color of spun gold, and his skin had an orange cast that was meant to look naturally tan but failed to do so. Never in my life had I encountered a person in Maine who looked like him.

The golden man put his arm on Deb’s shoulders and leaned his smiling face close to hers, as if they were old friends.

“Who the hell is that?” Stacey asked.

“I think it might be their minister.”

“He looks like he’s going to a disco later.”

Behind us came the sound of an engine. We stepped aside and let an obsidian black Cadillac Escalade creep past. The SUV pulled up to the plane and a man in a black polo shirt and pants emerged. He conferred with the minister—if that was indeed who he was—and began collecting the luggage on the tarmac.

The lieutenant glanced back again in our direction, but I couldn’t read his expression. Samantha’s and Missy’s parents went around the circle, shaking hands again with everyone, and then they all got into the Escalade. The minister lingered on the runway for a moment. When Commissioner Matthews tried to climb into the SUV, he politely waved her away. Then he got into the front seat beside the driver, and the vehicle swung around, heading out.

Again, Stacey and I stepped onto the sunburned grass. As the Cadillac drove by, I noticed that the windows were darkened, but I could feel the eyes of the people inside.

Deb Davies walked toward us. She was looking at the ground and playing with her Mickey Mouse wristwatch.

“How’d it go?” Stacey asked.

The chaplain seemed a bit dazed. “They thanked me for coming but said they didn’t need my services.”

“So the guy with the hair was their personal minister?” I said.

“He introduced himself as the Reverend Mott. He asked what denomination I belonged to. When I said Methodist, he said that was what he would have guessed.”

“What church does he belong to?” Stacey asked. “The Church of Cheesy Hair?”

“How did the parents seem?” I asked.

“They were pretending to be all right,” Deb said. “All except Missy’s mom. The poor woman looked like she hadn’t slept in a week. They’re headed over to the Inn at Lily Bay. I’m going to get a ride back to Division C Headquarters with Lieutenant DeFord. He said he’d send someone to fix my car.”

“The families don’t want your help at all?” I said. “What will you do?”

“Go home, I guess.” She bit her lip as the thought overcame her. “This has never happened to me before.”

Stacey stared over my shoulder. “Wow, the commissioner is really chewing out the lieutenant.”

“She wanted more wardens in uniform here,” said Deb. “She doesn’t think he understands how important these people are.”

“Would she prefer he pull people off the search?” I asked.

The question answered itself. Out on the airstrip, Matthews was making large hand gestures as she spoke with DeFord. Her face was hard and white beneath her helmet of black hair. Good political operator that he was, the lieutenant took every punch the commissioner dished out.

15

Stacey and I headed east on the rutted KI Road, back into the Hundred Mile Wilderness. Impenetrable thickets of raspberries had sprung up in the old clear-cuts. I kept my eyes open, hoping to see a feeding bear.

“I’ve never known anyone who travels with a personal preacher,” she said. “My folks had a Unitarian minister to dinner once. Does that count?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What about you?”

“My mom would sometimes have priests over to the house in Scarborough,” I said. “I remember one of them who got redder and redder the more wine he drank. He kept looking at me whenever he took a sip. Later, I heard a rumor about him and altar boys, but he was never arrested. The bishop just moved him to another diocese.”

“Is that why you’re an atheist?” Stacey asked.

I couldn’t keep myself from laughing. “Who said I was an atheist?”

“You don’t go to church.”

“Neither do you.”

“My church is in the woods,” she said with an impish grin. “I worship in a sacred grove of oak trees and mistletoe. I’m studying to become a druid. Didn’t I tell you?”

“I don’t think the Reverend Mott would approve.”

“Definitely not!”

“If we find Samantha and Missy, he won’t care what religions we are.”

“No,” said Stacey. “He’d still say I’m going to hell.”

“What about me?’

“The jury’s still out on that one.”

The truck hit an embedded rock in the road and bumped us into the air.

When we rolled to a grinding stop at the North Maine Woods checkpoint, we found the gatekeeper—a grandmotherly type with reading glasses hanging on a chain from her neck—seated on the steps of her cabin, reading
Guns & Ammo.
Her job was to make sure that anyone who entered the wilderness between Greenville and Katahdin Iron Works checked in and checked out. The landowners didn’t want campers secretly holing up in some remote clearing where they might leave trash behind or start a wildfire through carelessness. Wardens and other emergency personnel weren’t required to register. The old woman must have already waved through a dozen search vehicles that morning.

The little old lady set her magazine down and rose from the steps as we got out of the truck. Her white hair was done up in braids. She wore a camouflage fleece top, brown cords, and deerskin moccasins, but if she had an ounce of Wabanaki Indian blood in her veins, I was a Pacific Islander.

“You don’t need to sign in, Warden,” she said.

“I have a question for you if you have a minute.”

“All I’ve got here is time.”

I showed her the photo I’d taken of Chad McDonough’s driver’s license. “You don’t have a record of this man coming through here, do you? He’d be driving a Kia Soul with Massachusetts plates.
MDONUT
.”

“Does this have something to do with those missing hikers?”

“I can’t say.”

She raised her reading glasses up on their chain and squinted at the screen. The sunlight must’ve made it hard to see, because she cupped her hands to create a shadow. She gave me back the camera and ascended into the building with more energy than I would have expected of someone her age. A moment later, she popped through the door with a clipboard.

“He’s not on my list.”

“Could he have come in or gone out the Katahdin Iron Works gate?” asked Stacey.

“Chuck and I send our information to each other every night. If he came through, I’d know about it.”

I found a business card in my uniform pocket. “If he happens to come by, could you call the state police and ask them to contact me immediately?”

The old woman read my name and peered at me above her square reading glasses. “Are you any relationship to Jack Bowditch?”

I had forgotten my late father’s notoriety in this part of the state. In his youth, he had worked all over the western woods—also drank, brawled, and screwed. “Why? Did you know him?”

“No, but my daughter did.”

I decided it was a story I didn’t need to hear. I thanked her and began to descend the stairs.

“There’s one more thing,” she called after me. “We wouldn’t have any record of your suspect if he came in on foot—or if he was a passenger in a vehicle. We only record the name and license number of the driver.”

“Who said he was a suspect?” Stacey asked.

“Why else would you be looking for him?” the old woman said smugly.

*   *   *

The crackle and pop of my police radio was constant as we traveled deeper into the mountains. There were reports of searchers fanning out through the Pleasant River valley. We passed patrol trucks parked at trailheads and groups of volunteers gathered in the shade to plot strategy.